Son Sadrazam Ahmet Tevfiq Paşa-Nurten Çetin-Konya-2011

Ahmet Tevfik Pasha (Ottoman Turkish: احمد توفیق پاشا‎‎; 11 February 1845 – 8 October 1936), known as Ahmet Tevfik Okday after the Surname Law of 1934, was the last Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire.[1]

He held the office three times, the first in 1909 under Abdul Hamid II, and from 1918 to 1919 and from 1920 to 1922 under Mehmed V Reşad during the Allied occupation of Istanbul. In addition to his premiership, Ahmet Tevfik was also a diplomat, a member of the Ottoman Senate, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Biography

Ahmet Tevfik was born on 11 February 1845 in Istanbul. His father, Ferik Ismail Pasha, was a Crimean Tatar descended from the Giray dynasty.[2] Ahmet Tevfik entered military service but left after becoming a junior officer, entering government bureaucracy training. After 1872, he held various foreign ministry posts. After serving as an ambassador in Rome, Vienna, St. Petersburg, and Athens, he served as the Ottoman chargé d'affaires and ambassador to Germany in Berlin from 1885 to 1895.[2] After returning to Istanbul, he served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Turkish: Hariciye Nazırı) from 1899 to 1909. After the proclamation of the Second Constitutional Era in 1908, Ahmet Tevfik Pasha was appointed to a seat in the revived Senate of the Ottoman Empire (Turkish: Ayan Meclisi), the upper house of the also-revived parliament, the General Assembly (Turkish: Meclis-i Mebusan).

While serving as chargé d'affaires in Athens, he met and married Elisabeth Tschumi, a Swiss woman working as a governess to the children of another diplomat. They had five children together.[2]

First term as grand vizier

Ahmet Tevfik Pasha's first period of office as grand vizier was one of the direct outcomes of the failed counterrevolutionary 31 March Incident (which actually occurred on 13 April) in 1909. When the absolutists declared the countercoup, they demanded and received the resignation of the previous grand vizier Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha. Although their preferred replacement was not Ahmet Tevfik Pasha, his appointment at least fulfilled their demands for the removal of Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha.[3] Ahmet Tevfik Pasha, who had only reluctantly taken up the post at the urging of the pro-absolutist sultan Abdul Hamid II, formed a government made up of mostly non-partisan and neutral members and took precautions to limit the growth of violence that had begun in Istanbul and Adana. After the Hareket Ordusu (English: Army of Action) entered Istanbul and restored the constitutional government, and Abdul Hamid was deposed, Ahmet Tevfik Pasha resigned and Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha returned as grand vizier.

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